The Forked Stick Podcast

Am-Maide (ammayte): The Forked Stick

“……….for a while, none can say how long as if that time was important, but the Children of Fear made home and gathered about Am-Maide, and for that untold time the world grew stiller………..” from the tale of Faol-Chon (f-owl-kon & Easag (ah-saj)

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The Ancestral stories tell of a time long ago when the Children of Fear, the two leggeds wandered across the earth.

In those days Iarmailt (earmarta) the sky, cried a great deal. She would weep for sadness, she would weep for joy, she would weep for the lost and the found, for the fallen and the ones who stood up, in fact she would weep for weeping some might say. And all below her got very wet. The Children of the Forest though learnt to hide under the mountains to keep themselves dry.

And there were days when Iarmailt forgot to cry, that Grian (gree-an), the sun, would burst forth in great radiant splendor with his great beaming smile. The touch of his radiance warmed and heated the land. Sometimes his enthusiasm was so much that the Children of the Forest sheltered under the trees to keep cool.

For the Children of Fear (fah), they could not carry the mountains or the trees and in that rain and in that heat, they all scattered running this way and that way to find shelter and shade.

Gearlach (garlay)the Maiden Moon, always trying to gather the children, sent Geàrr (gi-or) her warrior Hare to stand very still in a single beam of her light. He stood so still that in this telling he became fixed, as a tree with his two ears pointing to the sky. This tree was on the every path that Fear himself would take.

Fear came to the treelike hare, his ears framing the moon above.

Fear remembers the time when he was afraid and the light of Gearlach comforted his loneliness.

He takes the cloak from his back and throws it over the hare’s ears to capture the moon and runs back to his tremulous children wet by the rain and hot by the sun.

His intention was to call them together so they would not be afraid. But the Children looked at him and saw that this forked stick with its cloak covering kept Fear from rain and sun.

And all the children gathered tightly around their father to keep safe and hear the story of Geàrr and Gearlach, and it is said that many tales were told beneath the Buath (booarv) of Fear’s cloak and Am-Maide, the forked stick of the hare and gift of the moon.

Some say that the forked stick has been a symbol for gathering and finding, whether through divination or as symbols, that predate the shepherds crook. The forked stick is also in practice the structure and device used to support and carry as well as a metaphor for bringing a divergence of opposing or conversely similar ideas and philosophies together in a focused stream.

The forked stick or wytching stick is used as a symbol of defining truth, declaring an adventurous quest, restraining a debate, gathering in storytelling and of course being the hare that catches the moon, which for us means holding the community.

The Forked Stick Podcast is a space, a time, a place to be in that stillness that maybe opens us to an adventurous quest, gathers us in storytelling or holds us with others who think the same way or not!

Forked Stick is produced by The Sagh’ic Animist Society.

The shows are hosted by Jeff Stockton and John-Luke Edwards and produced by Mojo Kemp, who invite all to this journey of discovery, exploration and intimacy with the Mystery that we are dreaming.

The Society aims to draw together all Animist, ‘shamanic’ and Spiritual paths in a collaborative network and community regardless of beliefs, rather focusing on the work of service to communities and spirits.

All our speakers are invited to share their work and words with us, this however does not suggest that we have to agree or disagree with their beliefs, nor does it imply connection or non connection with those beliefs, rather it honours and respects their work in their way with the spirit, by what ever name, that surround us.